The sport hasn’t been in its 1.0 model for way more than every week and issues hold taking place, with updates massive and small touchdown virtually each day, so it seems like I have to take a breath and catch up.
Challenge: Gorgon – It Lives!
I do wish to say that Potshot and I are nonetheless taking part in the sport and that it has a attraction and attraction past my expectations, by some means managing to faucet into each nostalgia and newness in my mind on the identical time. It a kind of “this isn’t what I requested for, however is outwardly what I wished” conditions.
Anyway, I’m going to take a second to compensate for issues. A part of that was determining the place to even discover the updates. The sport places them up within the login display, which is nice, however I like some place out of sport to evaluate them at my leisure. Whereas in addition they seem over on Steam, I’m favoring the official wiki as my supply.
- Reputation Improve on Day 1.0
First up, the sport appears to be popping because the 1.0 launch final week.
I’ve lengthy maintained a powerful opinion that video games get one launch date, and that’s the day they go into early entry. This has been beforehand born out for me within the variety of titles that by no means go away early entry, shutting down or simply lingering there endlessly, and the few that go away that state and are largely thought of carried out by the devs. So having one thing like a 10x bump in participant peaks will not be one thing I might anticipate.
Challenge: Gorgon would really like a phrase about that.
Challenge: Gorgon launch peak
The sport went from an early entry launch peak of 677 concurrent gamers again in April 2018 and, however final 12 months has settled right into a routine of 200-300 gamers on-line at peak day by day.
After which it had its 1.0 launch and went as much as 1,000. After which the weekend hit and the information obtained out and it exceeded 2,200 gamers, with the all time peak thus far hitting round 21:00 UTC on Sunday.
As I identified in my first put up the place I used to be simply going to peek in and see how issues had been going, it was form of loopy crowded on day one. The 1.0 milestone not solely attracted new gamers, however there was additionally an entire new space for sport veterans.
I’m not certain that solely disproves my idea. I believe the day that Star Citizen goes to 1.0, which I believe it by no means will, there received’t be an enormous change in gamers. Definitely not a 10x improve in gamers. PG feels extra like a particular case, the exception that proves the rule in some odd approach.
[Also, I wrote this on Wednesday because I was traveling yesterday and the peak concurrent number for the game is now 2,472 set early this morning UTC… and we’re not even to the weekend yet! What will Sunday bring?]
As a part of the 1.0 launch there was the promise of a brand new server, a contemporary begin for brand new gamers and the flexibility to construct a brand new group. Amongst different issues, this required the creation of a server choice possibility as a part of the login course of. You might go along with the unique Arisetsu server, or, as soon as it went reside, the brand new Dreva server.
Select your server
As a part of this, so as to enable new gamers to get established, there was initially a plan to drive each character on an account created earlier than Dec. 1, 2025 to play as a pig. The individuals who had been round however hadn’t performed that a lot complained about being excluded from the brand new server or pressured to play as a pig.
That led, briefly, to a capability to reset your account date by deleting and recreating your account. You’d lose something you had already, however wouldn’t be a pig.
That was modified to any account with greater than 40 hours of play time going through the pig therapy on the brand new server.
Then it was dropped altogether as maybe not probably the most workable thought. I went and performed on the unique server the place I had signed in early sufficient that I had the “Pre-Alpha Survivor” title from making an account again in the course of the early days of the sport.
So I didn’t expertise the pig factor. Nevertheless, since a pig is a playable beast kind in PG, I’m not even certain if this was a deterrent or a problem frankly.
And the entire pig thought obtained dropped as the group rushed in
Two servers… weren’t sufficient. The announcement was already out on Sunday {that a} third server was on the way in which.
Whoa! That’s numerous gamers! {Hardware} Incoming
We actually respect the prove of latest gamers! That is nice! However not nice for server efficiency. Every server is designed to have as much as 1000 concurrent gamers on it, and the brand new Dreva server is climbing as much as the 1500-player mark. There’s numerous server lag within the beginner areas, particularly Serbule. We see the place some extra {hardware} will assist this downside so we’re within the strategy of getting that in place for Dreva. It additionally looks as if we’d higher get a 3rd server up and working or poor Dreva will simply get extra overcrowded. So the third server will go surfing later this week.
I can affirm, even on the Arisetsu issues had been getting a bit unusual when there have been lots of people on the starter island or within the Serbule zone. On Sunday round when the all time peak was hitting I used to be seeing mobs that might die, however wouldn’t, and a few unusual loot points in a sport that already has an odd loot mechanic. So a brand new server is on the way in which.
The crew was doing issues to assist mitigate the issues, together with a brand new space that’s the subsequent bullet level, however even with that the brand new server was going to occur.
When the {hardware} for the third server is accessible, we’re nonetheless planning to launch it ASAP. This one can be named Strekios, after the god of Self-Enchancment.
We’ll see when it occurs, however Strekios is coming. Additionally, there can be a {hardware} improve for Dreva as a part of this, so perhaps they will hold the rely to 3 servers.
Addendum: Strekios is reside, three servers working! There’s a channel on the official Discord for the server as properly. Now to see how this trio of servers performs out.
In the meantime, I used to be hanging out on the unique server which was additionally seeing its personal swell of latest gamers, such that the Serbule zone was regularly a bit crowded. There’s a fairly wonderful line between simply sufficient individuals that you just run into others if you want them, like if you stumble onto a named spawn… or any individual combating that named spawn… and you’ll assist them out and a state of affairs the place you simply want to seek out a few deer for a process they usually have been hunted to extinction for the second.
Anyway, they patched in a redone space for brand new gamers, full with a some quests to maintain you busy and loads of mobs to slay.
Desert Desires: I spent the day creating a brand new journey space for ranges 1-15, known as “Desert Dream”. It reuses the Ilmari Desert map and reimagines it as a dream realm. It’s nothing too fancy, however I hope newbies take pleasure in it. The primary aim of this space is to assist unfold out newbies — our most important server bottleneck is having too many gamers in the identical zone. We might or might not hold this space as a long-term a part of the sport; we’ll see the way it goes
So it’s by the golden portal on the gates of Serbule and into the desert.
The golden portal calls to you
There’s a place the place I can work on my reptile and amphibian pathology.
Not likely a information bullet level, only a summing up.
I’m fairly completely happy to see how properly PG has been doing on this first week or so.
It does make me a bit nervous when there’s a big spike in customers and a rush to get extra servers on-line. What number of occasions have we seen that peter out and go away a sport with underneath underneath utilized {hardware} and empty zones?
I take coronary heart in the truth that, till this previous week, the sport had been chugging alongside simply wonderful with day by day consumer peaks at a tenth of what they’ve been lately. That, as I perceive it, has yielded a powerful group and lively zones.
However now I’ve a desert to discover.
On the sands of journey
We must go away tomorrow’s issues till tomorrow.
Addendum: So this obtained thrown into the combination as properly.
Along with the above announcement, we’re taking additional congestion management measures by lowering the afk timeout to five minutes, which was beforehand quarter-hour, on all servers.
Don’t idle too lengthy!
